PHILIPPINES
The Manila Times-May 17

On Tuesday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) released the remittance figures for the month of March, and the results were alarming, to say the least. While the BSP tried to offer a reassuring explanation for the unexpected sharp decline, the Duterte administration ought to regard the data for what it is, a sober reminder that too great a part of the economy still relies on tenuous inputs largely beyond the country’s control, and that is something that needs to change.
By the numbers, remittances sent home by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in March this year totaled $2.627 billion, about 3.9 percent higher than the February level of $2.528 billion, but nearly 10 percent less than the $2.915 billion remitted by OFWs in the year-earlier month of March. For the year-to-date (Jan-March 2018), remittances totaled $7.8 billion, just 1.3 percent higher than a year earlier.
Read more at: http://www.manilatimes.net/worrisome-remittance-data-demands-govt-attention/399276/
First published in: The Manila Times